about the Project

2020 Update: Hi! I reactivated this comic blog and re-published a selection of the stories in this pandemic year after it being defunct for years - image hosting site went offline, pix were gone etc. It's interesting to look at these stories 7 to 13 years later.
I started the project in 2007 together with Katharina Anna Helming, after we had seen American Splendor and were inspired by that movie's message that everyday mundane moments can be as interesting as the big dramatic stuff. 2008 I moved to Berlin where our stories somehow found their way into the subway screen broadcast 'Berliner Fenster', with the last story being broadcast in 2013, and with 3 books published. In the years after I focused on organizing a comic festival and Katharina focused on her academic career.

When I read my own stories now, quite a few make me cringe a little (as earlier projects often do) and I think "self absorbed, depressed, adolescent emo man in the big city"  (ˆ ◒  ˆ ;) At the same time: that's how I looked at things at that time.
The project was an interesting exercise in style and storytelling with strict limitations (max 8 screens/panels... only a certain amount of text in huge lettering, to be readable on screens that are meters away... having to stage and photograph situations for stories, with the involved people, instead of just drawing it...). Photo comics are a tiny niche in the already niche indie comics world, so I'm happy some of this is online again.
Looking back I definitely would have picked a less vague d-english project title (っˆ ◒ ˆς), but such is the way of time passing and looking at earlier decisions - "Hätte hätte, Fahrradkette", as we germans say.

Thank you for reading, feel free to reach out via the FB page, aaaand if YOU make comics and live in Berlin, check out Berliner Comic Fenster, a project for which am curating a series of comic stories shown on the subway (in a similar format as ye olde LIFESTRIPs stories) and once every year it's possible to submit stories.
Marc


LIFESTRIPs ran on the subway screen broadcast 'Berliner Fenster' in Berlin once a week between 2008 and 2013. A selection of the broadcast stories can be read here. A big Thank You to to BF and to Fred who worked with me and gave me the opportunity to show these weird stories in such a public space. Also a huge Thanks to friends and partners who helped with photography and agreed to be in the stories.

FB Fanpage


Press
"...very recognisable sketches and slices of everyday life in a modern city. It’s (...) interesting to see that, although the strips are kept separate, certain constant themes seep through : love, work, purpose, they all form the meandering subtext of these apparently mundane situations."
The Ephemerist

"Lifestrips have evolved over time from a very inventive and intelligent journal in photocomic from into a series of poetic, imaginative and often surrealist vignettes."
Forbidden Planet